In 2023, Romanians working abroad sent back the equivalent of 2 percent of their country’s GDP, representing a substantial contribution to the country’s economic growth.
In fact, so much money was sent home by Romanians from abroad, that it was only 1.2 percent less than the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) attracted by Romania last year, according to data from the National Bank of Romania (NBR).
The amount of remittances, €6.5 billion, represents a new record and is more than twice as much as a decade ago, dating back to 2014. In the last decade, the total value of remittances of Romanian workers abroad amounted to over €46.5 billion, just 14.2 percent below the level of foreign direct investments (FDI) that entered the country in the same period. Together with FDI and European funds (around 4.2 percent of GDP in 2023), remittances from Romanians abroad are important sources of “patching” the current account deficit and supporting the national currency.
The current account, which is essentially a balance of Romania’s international transactions, recorded a deficit of €22.7 billion (7 percent of GDP) last year, mainly a consequence of the very high trade deficit, with the difference between imports and exports totaling €28.9 billion in 2023.
In 2023, for the second year in a row, the United Kingdom remained the country of origin of the largest remittances to Romania. Nearly a quarter, or €1.5 billion, of total remittances came from Romanians who work there.
Germany came in second with €1.4 billion, and these two countries stand out for their steady growth in remittances, while countries such as Italy and Spain, which rank first and third in terms of the size of their Romanian communities, are rather inconsistent in this respect.
Remittances from these countries grew until 2019, after which they experienced several years of decline, recovering only partially in the wake of the pandemic.
On the other hand, remittances from the U.K. have increased almost tenfold in the last decade, while the Romanian diaspora there numbers less than 400,000 people, almost three times less than the Romanian diaspora in Italy, for example, according to official estimates.
Around 800,000 Romanians are believed to have immigrated to Germany, but remittances are also affected by seasonal workers, mainly in agriculture and tourism.
